We knew we were doomed when the T-shirt cannon bots showed up

The newest addition to the Skynet armada is this 10-barrel t-shirt cannon. It’s capable of storming the battlements at over twelve feet per second with a firing rate of three T-shirts per second (ooh, is that cotton?).

The members of Team 254, which is hosted by Bellarmine College Preparatory School, built the robot over the summer. This involved a full production cycle; planning, 3D modelling, acquiring the materials, and finishing the build. All of this is well documented in their build blog and for video, check out their media page.

Could tell from the image this was a FIRST robotics team. Most teams use a tank drive that looks very similar to this, and I’m pretty sure the wheels are standard kit provided. FIRST is an amazing program, awesome build!

@Tom: I also dislike six-wheel designs for that reason, but the wheels are slippery enough that the bot turns pretty fast anyway.

I like the scuba tanks idea. Our team simply uses a 120 psi pneumatic pump coupled with a few gas reservoirs to store the pressurized air, but not only are they slow to pump up to pressure before each shot, but the process saps battery life. With the higher-pressure air from the scuba tanks, we wouldn’t need such big reservoirs.

@Soo-Hyun – I think those wheels are the sticky ones from the 2010 FRC kit of parts. I don’t think they are slippery or that low traction would improve how well it turns. The robot drives like a tank with the right wheels being independent from the left wheels. As far as I know tanks can turn well enough.